Same as Fer De Lance, but instead of being a turn fighter, it's a boom and zoomer. Or at least will be once they fix it's massive overheating problem. This ship of all ships should be able to use dirty drives and boost continuously if it wants.
What's The Mamba's niche?
- Thread starter Strangepork
- Start date
Same as Fer De Lance, but instead of being a turn fighter, it's a boom and zoomer. Or at least will be once they fix it's massive overheating problem. This ship of all ships should be able to use dirty drives and boost continuously if it wants.
The beta ships were already added to edshipyard, so time to play around with some builds: http://edshipyard.net/
The Replicated Man
T
They may be similar, but the mamba has better lateral thrusters IMO. I felt more at home in it than the FDL and thank goodness the cockpit is centered!
Working on assembling my first pure PvP Mamba loadout now...1.3k fast charge biweave shields, 2.1k hull, acceptable resistances, 500m/s cruise, 614m/s boost.
The opposite is the case by a rather significant margin.
Mamba does seem to have less propensity to stall than the FDL though.
The opposite is the case by a rather significant margin.
Mamba does seem to have less propensity to stall than the FDL though.
hahaha
Did anyone noticed those two little lockers left and right side in front of the seat? The right one contains a mug and a role tape, the left one two bottles?
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LOL had left and right wrong LOL
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Head on over to the vicinity of LHS 20 (in beta) and interdict the Mamba named "Insurance Stress Test" with the vessel of your choice and I'll do my best to show you.
When I can have it in gloss black, sure.
I'm less concerned about paint now than before night vision was announced, but I'll probably still get the tactical colors so I have white for when I prowl ice rings/worlds and graphite for other times, on the hopes that people forget, or don't like to use, night vision.
Like every other combat ship, it's niche is just another "flavor of the month" new combat vessel that'll fall to the wayside of obviously superior and more well rounded ships like the FDL, Chieftain, and FAS. All of which share several things: excellent effective HP, great maneuverability, and enough hardpoint damage to smash anything in its way while still flying circles around enemies.
Take one look at the Fed Dropship, Gunship, and the Chieftain's not-quite-right siblings. All of them are nothing more than combat vessels but aren't used because they're simply not as good nor as interesting.
Trying to use them in any other role (BECAUSE Fdev loves designing ships and slating them to a niche by WEAKNESSES and NOT strengths) is mostly a miserable failure. You can't take a Gunship more than a few jumps without sacrificing its already limited module slots. The Dropship is arguably the one that stands out the most here, having borderline multirole capacities of modules but still is hampered by its low maneuverability and relative firepower compared to the other ships. It makes a poor multirole due to its poor fuel and jump range as well.
Similar aspects apply to the Challenger and Crusader. They took what was good from the Chieftain and then butchered it. FDev's design balance when it comes to new designs and iterations of ships is arbitrarily gimping several aspects at once while adding one new thing to it.
In the case of the Challenger, it sacrifices a large hardpoint for two additional mediums; a net gain of 1 hardpoint. It does have one additional internal module slot however, but the problem is that the remaining slots were downsized to compensate, making it useless for fuel, transportation, and quite literally anything else. It's also slower despite having marginally more health, but also has less energy to damage efficiency via the loss of the large hardpoint.
It makes for a gunboat combat vessel that can hold a lot of guns, maybe good with missiles and multicannons but it will still be worse against maneuvering and pinpointing damage against larger vessels like the Chieftain.
The Crusader is the joke of the triplets. With one less medium hardpoint than the Challenger but the ability to launch an SLF, it remains just another flavored combat vessel that is further limited by having less options available to it. It has the same internal modules (roughly) but still can't do more than launch an SLF and use its weaker firepower in conjunction with it.
With all this taken into consideration, the conclusion is that EVERY SHIP HERE does the exact same job, with the only differences really being whether or not they're effective or not. As such, the Federal Vessels remain distinguished in that they have at least some variation between them, but the Alliance derivatives are very poor showings of very poor balance and design. They do not excel; they aren't even side grades. They're poor variations because they have none of the strengths of the original vessel, because those all those strengths were sacrificed for token improvements that ultimate do nothing to aid them.
Bearing all this in mind, the Mamba suffers identical issues as another "derivative" vessel, just with a different mesh. We will be ignoring heat for the moment but it's still one of the BIGGEST issues with the vessel, but it is tangential.
First off it's as large as a Python, but has the internals of an FDL. It holds LESS overall optional module sizes than the FDL despite being much larger. The net addition of two small hardpoints (2 meds = 1 large) over the FDL does not seem reasonable to compromise everything else within it. It has the same utility slots and almost the same weight and shielding scaling. It also, frustratingly has the same FSD. BUT ALSO THE SAME TINY FUEL TANK.
Putting it all together, it's simply ANOTHER FDL in function, combat performance aside. It's simply ANOTHER combat vessel that can't do anything else but coast around a RES for 3 hours before it runs out of fuel.
Ultimately this highlights multiple issues with the balance of combat vessels and the Mamba.
As of now, PVE combat does not have enough variation for the SHEER amount of combat vessels that currently exist in the game. It creates bloated, arbitrary choice because there are very obviously superior choices to take. Even if the alternate choices are taken for novelty, they aren't fun because they suffer from so many issues at once that make their effectiveness much lower on the combat scale. This is on top of uninspired and copied design that fails to consider strengths in ships, favoring weaknesses in order to create choices instead of making them exceptional, with absolutely uncomrpomising balance on making them garbage at anything other than the role they're dedicated at. To which they often fail to be exceptional in their slated roles!
Which makes me ask the question: why aren't these ships dramatically more varied in design? The Federal ships have enough variation to be distinguished into different roles. Different handling, various module slots and varying hardpoint layouts that can alter their usage. But that's just one aspect.
Why aren't some of these combat ships getting LARGER fuel tanks at hte very least? Why is the Mamba stuck to the SAME weight as the FDL, and subsequently the SAME FSD and the SAME fuel tank?
Modern military vehicles have massive fuel tanks to compensate for their high fuel usage as they require high performance all the time. This aspect ALONE is the reason why most of these vessels have so little usage. They simply can't do anything because they can't go anywhere to do it without comrpomising their own vessel for either fuel or combat. It's not choice. It turns ships into little more than toys that you keep at a specific area and ignore otherwise. Giving the Mamba, heck, even the FDL (the latter of which is a slated bounty hunting and transportation vessel, even for the rich) an 8 ton fuel tank with an undersized FSD is like giving a Bugatti Veyron the fuel tank of Prius. The Veyron has a 25 gallon + fuel tank (100 liters.) The Prius has only 11 gallons (roughly 43 liters.) Which begs the question: would giving literally any of the "heavier" combat/multi role'd combat vessels (Dropship, Gunship, Mamba, Challenger, just to name a few) a size higher fuel tank really have any negative impacts in not only the balance of ship vessels but their overall usability, whether being "too good" or otherwise?
The design and limitations of these combat vessels give them no niche except for very generic ones in combat. This is in part due to the lack of variation in combat, and simply the low amount of usable slots that nearly all combat vessels have. You can't take these ships outside of a small range, you can't do anything other than combat with them, and stripping out their few precious module slots for any sort of utility costs them significantly in effectiveness in combat.
In short, what's wrong with these vessels is their lack of versatility that's hardlocked into them (FSD, fuel in particular), combined with lack of actual modularity (module slots) to even MAKE UP for these weaknesses. Military module slots were a great way to improve most of their defensive capabilities, but even their internal slots still remain heavily lacking in function and capability.
The Mamba gets the shortest end of the stick here. With an undersized FSD, a massively undersized fuel tank, and limited module slots for almost anything, on top of its current weaknesses, it has almost no role outside a gimmick of a ship that can't go anywhere and do little. It's a really nice looking ship to fly at high speeds and cruising...for two hours. So no exploration, limited combat capabilities (jousting means taking more damage than avoiding), and a ship that can't go anywhere and is the biggest example of everything wrong with niches in Elite in their current state. Effectiveness in combat aside, it has no role outside as a combat toy.
Take one look at the Fed Dropship, Gunship, and the Chieftain's not-quite-right siblings. All of them are nothing more than combat vessels but aren't used because they're simply not as good nor as interesting.
Trying to use them in any other role (BECAUSE Fdev loves designing ships and slating them to a niche by WEAKNESSES and NOT strengths) is mostly a miserable failure. You can't take a Gunship more than a few jumps without sacrificing its already limited module slots. The Dropship is arguably the one that stands out the most here, having borderline multirole capacities of modules but still is hampered by its low maneuverability and relative firepower compared to the other ships. It makes a poor multirole due to its poor fuel and jump range as well.
Similar aspects apply to the Challenger and Crusader. They took what was good from the Chieftain and then butchered it. FDev's design balance when it comes to new designs and iterations of ships is arbitrarily gimping several aspects at once while adding one new thing to it.
In the case of the Challenger, it sacrifices a large hardpoint for two additional mediums; a net gain of 1 hardpoint. It does have one additional internal module slot however, but the problem is that the remaining slots were downsized to compensate, making it useless for fuel, transportation, and quite literally anything else. It's also slower despite having marginally more health, but also has less energy to damage efficiency via the loss of the large hardpoint.
It makes for a gunboat combat vessel that can hold a lot of guns, maybe good with missiles and multicannons but it will still be worse against maneuvering and pinpointing damage against larger vessels like the Chieftain.
The Crusader is the joke of the triplets. With one less medium hardpoint than the Challenger but the ability to launch an SLF, it remains just another flavored combat vessel that is further limited by having less options available to it. It has the same internal modules (roughly) but still can't do more than launch an SLF and use its weaker firepower in conjunction with it.
With all this taken into consideration, the conclusion is that EVERY SHIP HERE does the exact same job, with the only differences really being whether or not they're effective or not. As such, the Federal Vessels remain distinguished in that they have at least some variation between them, but the Alliance derivatives are very poor showings of very poor balance and design. They do not excel; they aren't even side grades. They're poor variations because they have none of the strengths of the original vessel, because those all those strengths were sacrificed for token improvements that ultimate do nothing to aid them.
Bearing all this in mind, the Mamba suffers identical issues as another "derivative" vessel, just with a different mesh. We will be ignoring heat for the moment but it's still one of the BIGGEST issues with the vessel, but it is tangential.
First off it's as large as a Python, but has the internals of an FDL. It holds LESS overall optional module sizes than the FDL despite being much larger. The net addition of two small hardpoints (2 meds = 1 large) over the FDL does not seem reasonable to compromise everything else within it. It has the same utility slots and almost the same weight and shielding scaling. It also, frustratingly has the same FSD. BUT ALSO THE SAME TINY FUEL TANK.
Putting it all together, it's simply ANOTHER FDL in function, combat performance aside. It's simply ANOTHER combat vessel that can't do anything else but coast around a RES for 3 hours before it runs out of fuel.
Ultimately this highlights multiple issues with the balance of combat vessels and the Mamba.
As of now, PVE combat does not have enough variation for the SHEER amount of combat vessels that currently exist in the game. It creates bloated, arbitrary choice because there are very obviously superior choices to take. Even if the alternate choices are taken for novelty, they aren't fun because they suffer from so many issues at once that make their effectiveness much lower on the combat scale. This is on top of uninspired and copied design that fails to consider strengths in ships, favoring weaknesses in order to create choices instead of making them exceptional, with absolutely uncomrpomising balance on making them garbage at anything other than the role they're dedicated at. To which they often fail to be exceptional in their slated roles!
Which makes me ask the question: why aren't these ships dramatically more varied in design? The Federal ships have enough variation to be distinguished into different roles. Different handling, various module slots and varying hardpoint layouts that can alter their usage. But that's just one aspect.
Why aren't some of these combat ships getting LARGER fuel tanks at hte very least? Why is the Mamba stuck to the SAME weight as the FDL, and subsequently the SAME FSD and the SAME fuel tank?
Modern military vehicles have massive fuel tanks to compensate for their high fuel usage as they require high performance all the time. This aspect ALONE is the reason why most of these vessels have so little usage. They simply can't do anything because they can't go anywhere to do it without comrpomising their own vessel for either fuel or combat. It's not choice. It turns ships into little more than toys that you keep at a specific area and ignore otherwise. Giving the Mamba, heck, even the FDL (the latter of which is a slated bounty hunting and transportation vessel, even for the rich) an 8 ton fuel tank with an undersized FSD is like giving a Bugatti Veyron the fuel tank of Prius. The Veyron has a 25 gallon + fuel tank (100 liters.) The Prius has only 11 gallons (roughly 43 liters.) Which begs the question: would giving literally any of the "heavier" combat/multi role'd combat vessels (Dropship, Gunship, Mamba, Challenger, just to name a few) a size higher fuel tank really have any negative impacts in not only the balance of ship vessels but their overall usability, whether being "too good" or otherwise?
The design and limitations of these combat vessels give them no niche except for very generic ones in combat. This is in part due to the lack of variation in combat, and simply the low amount of usable slots that nearly all combat vessels have. You can't take these ships outside of a small range, you can't do anything other than combat with them, and stripping out their few precious module slots for any sort of utility costs them significantly in effectiveness in combat.
In short, what's wrong with these vessels is their lack of versatility that's hardlocked into them (FSD, fuel in particular), combined with lack of actual modularity (module slots) to even MAKE UP for these weaknesses. Military module slots were a great way to improve most of their defensive capabilities, but even their internal slots still remain heavily lacking in function and capability.
The Mamba gets the shortest end of the stick here. With an undersized FSD, a massively undersized fuel tank, and limited module slots for almost anything, on top of its current weaknesses, it has almost no role outside a gimmick of a ship that can't go anywhere and do little. It's a really nice looking ship to fly at high speeds and cruising...for two hours. So no exploration, limited combat capabilities (jousting means taking more damage than avoiding), and a ship that can't go anywhere and is the biggest example of everything wrong with niches in Elite in their current state. Effectiveness in combat aside, it has no role outside as a combat toy.
tl;dr everything yet, but this:
Can't go anywhere? You can get just short of 40 ly single jump range (non-boosted) out of her. 11 jumps from Shinrarta to Maia to get Drag Drives. 36 ly when you plug in some guns and still want to keep her at 640 m/s boost. I admit - in that configuration, she's no match for a meta FdL, but that's not my game.
The only thing that's keeping me from using her as my new exploration vessel is the lack of internals. Well, that - and the fact that my exploration CMDR is currently sitting around in the western arm, on the way to BP.
P.S.: You know how far the Veyron can go if you let her rip?
Can't go anywhere? You can get just short of 40 ly single jump range (non-boosted) out of her. 11 jumps from Shinrarta to Maia to get Drag Drives. 36 ly when you plug in some guns and still want to keep her at 640 m/s boost. I admit - in that configuration, she's no match for a meta FdL, but that's not my game.
The only thing that's keeping me from using her as my new exploration vessel is the lack of internals. Well, that - and the fact that my exploration CMDR is currently sitting around in the western arm, on the way to BP.
P.S.: You know how far the Veyron can go if you let her rip?
So, I wonder if this IS the last medium combat ship we ''needed"
Can you show us that build?
This is one of those ships that I will end up flying just because she is too beautiful not to fly.
Is she generally inferior as a combat ship to my FdL? Yes. But not so greatly so that she can't do the same job as the FdL pretty well; frankly, a fully engineered FdL is overkill in most PvE scenarios, so a ship that's "almost as good as an FdL" will do just fine. And she's prettier (which is saying something, since the FdL was my previous "best-looking ship in the game" winner). And there's the bonus that her Class 4 hardpoint has much better placement than the FDL's does.
I'll enjoy the speed, too, even if I'll miss the FdL's manueverability.
I figure ultimately, either the Mamba or the FdL will be purpose-kitted for anti-Thargoid operations while the other is outfitted for my usual bounty hunting. Not sure which I will use for which, yet. It'll be nice not to have to swap out my modules; I'd been considering buying a second FdL for that purpose and now I can just buy a Mamba instead.
Is she generally inferior as a combat ship to my FdL? Yes. But not so greatly so that she can't do the same job as the FdL pretty well; frankly, a fully engineered FdL is overkill in most PvE scenarios, so a ship that's "almost as good as an FdL" will do just fine. And she's prettier (which is saying something, since the FdL was my previous "best-looking ship in the game" winner). And there's the bonus that her Class 4 hardpoint has much better placement than the FDL's does.
I'll enjoy the speed, too, even if I'll miss the FdL's manueverability.
I figure ultimately, either the Mamba or the FdL will be purpose-kitted for anti-Thargoid operations while the other is outfitted for my usual bounty hunting. Not sure which I will use for which, yet. It'll be nice not to have to swap out my modules; I'd been considering buying a second FdL for that purpose and now I can just buy a Mamba instead.
Very good analysis and I just snipped this bit so I could address it specifically.
The "problem" with ships in the ED universe is that we can use them for anything we want.
The recent palaver with the T7 is a good example of that.
It has a lousy jump-range when full of cargo.
FDev decide to try it out with a bigger FSD and suddenly a bunch of people realise it'll make a good exploration ship.
FDev obviously don't want the space-truck usurping "proper" exploration ships so the bigger FSD gets binned.
It'd be the same thing with military vehicles in real-life... except that it's pretty hard to get hold of them and modify them.
If you could buy an old Scorpion tank, ditch all the armor and other military stuff, you'd end up with an outstanding off-roader.
I guess that's why FDev try to "module lock" ships into various roles.
If they didn't, people could use them for all sorts of things they were never intended for - and probably do some of those things better than ships intended for those roles.
Regarding the Mamba, I don't really have a problem with a lot of it's spec's... if we accept the whole "prototype racer" thing.
I mean, an F1 car it a pinnacle of technology but the bottom line is that it can only do 200 miles on a tank of juice, it's got no storage space, lousy ground clearance, terrible suspension and huge unreliability issues.
Heat issues aside, there's really nothing to prevent the Mamba from being a viable alternative to the FdL.
The only problem is that it doesn't seem to offer much incentive to use it instead of an FdL.
Even if it was just as good as an FdL in every other way, it's still physically bigger than an FdL, which makes it a bigger target.
That being the case, it doesn't just need to be as good as an FdL.
It needs to be significantly better than an FdL in at least one way, just so there'll be a good reason to choose it instead of an FdL.
And, to be clear, I don't consider it's current speed to be a significant advantage.
While this test won't demonstrate the Mamba's potential niches and doesn't even pit the Mamba against any ship it has to compete with, maybe someone will find it interesting:
[video=youtube;Fra5i0s1Qwc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fra5i0s1Qwc[/video]
Anyway, silly overspecialized load outs aside, the more I use the ship, the more I like it, and it will become one of my primary vessels for all sorts of stuff from, PvP to exploration, even if it's dropped into live as is.
The incentive to use it is that it's not an FDL and won't fall neatly into the same go to FDL configurations.
Mamba vs. FDL will always be an asymmetric challenge one way or another...often, but not always, in the FDL's favor.
This is vastly better than it being a carbon copy of the FDL, where fighting one is just like fighting another FDL.
Hell, the main reason I (mostly) stopped using the FDL was that the number of broadly effective loadouts was so condensed by Engineers that there were no real surprises any more. The depth and uncertainty of combat is a big appeal of combat to me, so when a contest is reduced to nothing more than a handful of technical aspects, it loses it's appeal. This is why I'm not thrilled with DM or TDM CQC, even though I'm relatively good at it; I do not like fighting my clones and do not want short range tactical awareness and raw aim to be the deciding factors of most combats.
If it was just as good as the FDL in every way it would be stupid and pointless and not fun at all.
Fortunately, it's got this too.
It lacks the FDL's propensity to stall and has enough of a speed advantage to be meaningful.
The hardpoint layout, despite being widely spaced in width, is also unique enough to give it access to some loadouts the FDL cannot readily duplicate. There are numerous large weapons that are much better than their medium equivalents.
[video=youtube;Fra5i0s1Qwc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fra5i0s1Qwc[/video]
Anyway, silly overspecialized load outs aside, the more I use the ship, the more I like it, and it will become one of my primary vessels for all sorts of stuff from, PvP to exploration, even if it's dropped into live as is.
The incentive to use it is that it's not an FDL and won't fall neatly into the same go to FDL configurations.
Mamba vs. FDL will always be an asymmetric challenge one way or another...often, but not always, in the FDL's favor.
This is vastly better than it being a carbon copy of the FDL, where fighting one is just like fighting another FDL.
Hell, the main reason I (mostly) stopped using the FDL was that the number of broadly effective loadouts was so condensed by Engineers that there were no real surprises any more. The depth and uncertainty of combat is a big appeal of combat to me, so when a contest is reduced to nothing more than a handful of technical aspects, it loses it's appeal. This is why I'm not thrilled with DM or TDM CQC, even though I'm relatively good at it; I do not like fighting my clones and do not want short range tactical awareness and raw aim to be the deciding factors of most combats.
If it was just as good as the FDL in every way it would be stupid and pointless and not fun at all.
Fortunately, it's got this too.
It lacks the FDL's propensity to stall and has enough of a speed advantage to be meaningful.
The hardpoint layout, despite being widely spaced in width, is also unique enough to give it access to some loadouts the FDL cannot readily duplicate. There are numerous large weapons that are much better than their medium equivalents.
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I bought the Mamba and enjoy its looks and somewhat like how it flies but it will not be the first new ship I buy when beta is over; that honor will go to the Phantom. I only had enough money to buy one or the other and outfit it properly for some testing. Down the road I may buy one in the RL account but for now, I'll have some fun flying the Mamba in the beta alternative universe.
It is a cool looking ship. I really like the bubble canopy. .. and the sound ... and the interior ... etc etc
It is a cool looking ship. I really like the bubble canopy. .. and the sound ... and the interior ... etc etc
I must say the view from the back seat during canyon racing with head tracking is amazing.
Fun ship, but too darn hot. Duels over a 0.1G planet with rails and MC's cooked us. Flying toaster
The reverse acceleration is quite something.
Still, weaker than the FDL for dueling.
Fun ship, but too darn hot. Duels over a 0.1G planet with rails and MC's cooked us. Flying toaster
The reverse acceleration is quite something.
Still, weaker than the FDL for dueling.